Category Archives: Prof. Tony Hall

The following story is an abridged open letter which I sent to the Mayor and Council of Jasper on July 8, 2017. Their email addresses are at the bottom, if you care to write to them. There is much irony in this story, especially in light of the fact that the award pictured here was given to me by the very organization which denied me a busking permit.

A Chronology of Promises & Broken Promises, Steps & Missteps

This story begins about 5 years ago. I made a presentation to Town Council that busking should be allowed in Jasper. It was not legal to busk at the time. I made the case that this little mountain town within a national park and world heritage site was a perfect place for busking, and that it would be a win-win-win situation. It would be good for the musicians, good for the tourists, and good for the town aesthetic. My presentation was well received, and the councillors enthusiastically assured me they would work on making it happen.

It took some time, but finally in 2016, the busking program was launched. To be specific it was Busking Pilot Project #2. Pilot Project #1 occurred during the Arts Days weekend late September 2015, and I took part in that. My band, the “Fiddle River Band”, played on the Saturday afternoon, and it was a great success. People were dancing on the sidewalk.

The 2016 Pilot Project was the first time that busking licences would be sold, and musicians could busk all summer, with a few guidelines stipulating where, when and how long.

Imagine my surprise then when I went to buy my licence, and was sent the curt email,

in light of your recently publicly proclaimed non-inclusive beliefs we have decided to decline a permit to you at this time.

There it was, clearly stated, that it was because of my thoughts that I was not going to be allowed to play my violin on the streets of Jasper.

That was last year. What came next? A season of surveys, meetings, emails, new process, newspaper articles, auditions, vetting buskers, guidelines, and rules.

Winter of 2016 – 2017

In response to numerous queries last summer by both myself and Prof Tony Hall from the University of Lethbridge, the town manager responded that there would be a survey in the fall to determine the success and what problems, if any, arose from the busking project, and then they would be in a position to answer our questions.

Autumn came and went, and there was not much action. There was a general satisfaction survey which included two questions on busking, and another survey for the business community more specifically related to busking.

On February 14th, 2017, busking was on the agenda of the Committee-of-the-Whole Council meeting. I requested a spot on the agenda. Marianne Garrah and Dave Baker of the Habitat for the Arts were also in attendance and made a presentation before mine.

I took note of Marianne Garrah’s comment that the vetting process for buskers should be based on talent and musical ability. This was noted in the minutes. To my understanding, that statement by Garrah was a tacit admission that they had erred the previous summer when they denied me a busking license based on my thoughts. This gave me confidence that this summer would be different.

At the same time, Councillor Gilbert Wall declared openly that I should not be allowed on the streets to busk, and that he could not separate my violin playing from my ideas. It was written about in both newspapers, as being “the elephant in the room” and “given what we know…” – how ominous – Councillor Wall made it clear that there must be “an out”, for them to be able to shut me out.

April 11 2017 Committee of the Whole minutes state that the management of the Busking Pilot Project for 2017 would once again be handed over to the Habitat for the Arts. They also stated that the selection committee should be comprised of people who are qualified to assess musical abilities.

During subsequent meetings, a clear outline of process was made for the busker vetting and selection process. There would be a panel of 5 judges. A point system would be used. Habitat for the Arts would choose a song from the auditionee’s set lists. If the performer “seems shaky on one song you may ask them to perform another song”. The performance would be recorded and sent to other judges who presumably could not all come together at the same time because of busy schedules.

This process implies open visibility of the panel. Several of the guidelines make it clear that this was to be a live audition process. For example, one guideline states

Judges are encouraged to interact with performers (but not for too long, just enough to make them feel comfortable).” Another states: “If a performer doesn’t show up, move on to the next performer on the list.”

After the May 2nd meeting, I immediately struck up a correspondence with the Habitat people to indicate my interest in auditioning for the purpose of acquiring a busking licence. I went in person, and I emailed.

When will the auditions take place? Where should I show up? How will I find out when they take place? Will there be an announcement in the paper? Will they email me? Phone me?

Responses to my attempts at communication were either absent or slow.

Finally I was told that I could simply send them a clip electronically. Pardon me???

What happened to the whole “select a song and if they are shaky pick another one, and please interact but not too much….” scenario? What was going to be a live audition in front of a panel of judges turned into an anonymous “send in your tape”.

I asked Marianne Garrah in person, “This process is open and transparent, correct? The judges’ identities should be public, yes?” She agreed. I asked who the judges are. She started to name them and after naming two, she hesitated, reconsidered, and said,

uhhhhh, I can’t remember who the others are, it’s not really my thing. This is not my project…

….Really??????

End of May, still no buskers on the streets of Jasper.

June – I left town for about two weeks, and when I returned, there were indeed buskers on the street, but only just.

I tried to visit the Habitat several times, to no avail, as nobody was there. I emailed, and asked when I could please pick up my permit, assuming of course that there would be no problem passing the audition process, having sent them the link to my music samples. They all had assured me that they knew I could play. And they did say it was based on talent and musical ability.

Imagine once again my surprise when I received the following unsigned email.

2017-06-20Hello Monika

For 2017 the Jasper Busking program has been designed such that a ‘no meet’ e-committee of community minded individuals are given sound/youtube/audition files provided by the artists. Those files are listened to with the intent of realizing three things: skill of the artist (5potential criteria points), potential enjoyment by the listener (5potential criteria points), and to gain a preception [sic] of the artists stage presence (5potential criteria points). Those criteria points are calculated over the 5 community members and to be warranted a licence the total must equal at least 55 (or 11 out of 15 from each response).

Unfortunately the results that came back to Habitat from the committee did not reflect that total for you. Your application for 2017 has been declined.

Who are these faceless nameless “community minded individuals”? They made rules and guidelines, then broke them all. Live audition process turned into electronic transmission to who knows who, and whoever they are, they reached their objective to keep Monika out. No accountability. No transparency. No legitimate reason was given. They got their way and evaded responsibility. Anonymous judges, faceless nameless individuals, awarding insufficient (zero?) points to one of the best-known musicians in this little town, is rather Kafkaesque, is it not?

The Farce

What did all of this amount to? New process after endless deliberations and meetings, it was all a big facade and nothing more. They did not quite know what to do with Monika Schaefer. They knew they could not openly deny me a license based on lack of musical abilities. They stated it many times, that it was not my music that bothered them, rather, it was my thoughts. My musical background and involvement in this community is extensive and well-known. In fact, some would say I had acquired local celebrity status as a violinist and fiddler, who was in much demand at community functions and fundraisers, both as performer and occasionally also as judge during competitions.

They must have struggled with this problem, because in spite of declaring at the May 2nd council meeting that they would like to see buskers on the streets of Jasper by the May long weekend, they did not appear until some time during the second week of June. I happened to be out of town then – how convenient.

False Diversity Project

The Fitzhugh newspaper reported (March 16, 2017 article page 3 and editorial page 6) that I was the subject of debate in deliberations about a proclamation designating Jasper an “inclusive community”. The Mayor warned that the proclamation could have unforeseen consequences.

It seems to me that inevitably we will run into the elephant in the room that councillor Gilbert Wall spoke about a week ago, that is when you proclaim to be inclusive without limitation then you are forced to confront those with whom you might have the most profound disagreements. ~Mayor Richard Ireland

All the while there is the absolute assumption that I am guilty of a crime – a thought crime. Regardless of whether I am right or wrong – should that even be relevant for the acquisition of a busking licence? Did we once pride ourselves on having freedom of speech in Canada?

Various agencies in the town of Jasper have designated themselves judge, jury and enforcers against the alleged thought crimes of Monika Schaefer. All the while, there is never so much as a glimmer of introspection, not the slightest interest in making enquiries into the issues which I have raised. In fact, the opposite is true. The ferocious attack against me is designed to frighten anyone else from looking.

There is simply a blanket acceptance of the prevailing dogma, and anyone who dares question is guilty of “racial incitement”. The very act of questioning is criminalized. The nasty little label “hate speech” is applied, and that’s that. Evidence is not required when something is “self-evident”. The Doctrine of Judicial Notice allows courts to recognize as “fact” matters that are “common knowledge”. The victors write the history books, so when they say it is so, then it is so. They determine what becomes “common knowledge”.

Inclusive community is a fraudulent concept in Jasper. Diversity in Jasper does not include thoughts.

Dear Mayor and Councillors, is this what you call due process? Is this not an EXACT fulfillment of some of my concerns expressed earlier in the winter? I thought we had reached an understanding that playing music should have NOTHING to do with a person’s views. Are you going to stand by and support the Habitat in their fraudulent project? Is this your legacy, turning the righteous town of Jasper, all-inclusive Jasper, into a narrow thought-policing agency?

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the UN Declaration of Human Rights are not being respected here in this little town in the midst of a National Park and a World Heritage Site.

The Jasper Diversity Project is a sham. The Jasper busking program is a farce. The proclamation of Inclusive Community is a joke. And most especially, the Habitat for the Arts Values and Principles Statement, all about “learning never stops…, embrace new challenges and ideas…, grow through knowledge exchange and support…” earns all three descriptors: sham, farce and a joke.

It is the one year anniversary since I went through a door. I was very well aware that once through this door, there was no going back. My life changed on June 17th, 2016, with the release of the “Sorry Mom, I was wrong about the Holocaust” video, followed a few days later with the German edition “Entschuldigung Mama, ich hatte Unrecht was den Holocaust betrifft”.

Though I had a sense of a serious transition in my life, I really had no idea what would follow. The intensity of reaction, both positive and negative, took my breath away. The video was translated with subtitles into 3 languages within the first 4 days. Spanish, swedish and french. A transcript was made. The view count shot up. Within a month there were 60,000 views, and currently it has over 133,000 views on one channel alone only in English.

Apparently the video struck a chord. Who would have guessed it would resonate with so many people? Many have had similar experiences as I did – reproaching or resenting their parents for being part of a generation of monsters, only to find out that everything had been turned on its head. For those who reached similar conclusions as I had reached after much research, there was deep gratitude, relief and appreciation for the simple message in my video.

For those still stuck in the matrix of lies, the video came as a shock and surprise. For those whose identity and interests were threatened, I became a grave threat and was pronounced the enemy. I learned all about Ritual Defamation in a town which boasts tolerance, inclusiveness, and “embraces diversity”.

Victims of ritual defamation become ostracized, shunned, humiliated, and isolated. An attempt is made to destroy the victim economically as well as socially. Mental poison is injected into the community, and it infects many well-meaning people.

Organizations and political parties stepped over each other to make a public show of expelling me. The Alberta Society of Fiddlers, the Jasper Environmental Association, the Alberta Green Party, the Green Party of Canada, all gave me the boot, and put it loudly into the record. The media dutifully reported, using weaponized words to trigger the programs that had been drip-fed into people’s brains to react in a predictable manner. “Neo-nazi holocaust denying hater!” What do those words actually mean? Nothing!

I wonder how many of my former friends took even twenty minutes, or perhaps three hours of their lives to view one or two or all three of the recommended videos at the end of my 6 minute video, before throwing away our friendship. Why would they not want to look into why I was making controversial statements which went contrary to everything we have been told all our lives about “the holocaust”? Do they really believe that I had suddenly lost my mind? Or were they afraid of what they might learn?

Many have told me outright that they will not discuss this topic, they refuse to look at it, refuse to debate it, refuse to question anything about it which would run contrary to what we have been told all our lives. It seems clear to me that this refusal to even look is the result of the psychological warfare that has been conducted against us. Do the weaponized words frighten us into submission? Does it make sense to ostrasize and shun a dissenter while refusing to look into the subject?

Why would there need to be laws to defend their holocaust if it really happened? They could show the evidence instead. Only lies need to be protected by laws. If the event was so rock-solid like they always tell us it is, they would not fear investigation. To me, the existence of laws against questioning “the holocaust” is enough to tell me there is something wrong with the story. I can never understand the mentality of people who tell me “you see Monika, the laws prove that you are wrong!” instead of recognizing the absurdity of the need for a law to protect a story.

It strikes me that real genocides are suppressed while the fictitional one is stoked up with a fury which seems to grow stronger every year. Real genocides such as the Holodomor are hardly known while Jewish “holocaust studies” are becoming mandatory curriculum in many places around the world.

This short introductory video to the “Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust” website is one of the so-called crimes which caused Professor Anthony Hall to be suspended from his tenured position at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta. Any thinking person should recognize that there is something deeply wrong when a history professor is persecuted for saying we should be able to examine our history.

No Regrets

The old saying “the truth will set you free” is really true. In spite of some hardships, I have a deep sense of peace and serenity. This stems from the clarity in my mind and heart and soul, that I have truth on my side. We are at the core of the peace movement when we seek to tell the truth. Lies and deceptions are what bring us wars and turmoil. Remember the Mossad motto: By way of Deception, thou shall do war.

There are “red-pilled” people everywhere. That I have learned for sure, as I have heard from many of them. They are in every little town, village and hamlet. The people are waking up in droves, every single day. The rate of awakening is explosive. There is no doubt in my mind that truth and light will prevail.

The fact that there is such a ferocious attempt to stifle dissent proves that Jewish Power depends on mass deception. An awakening will destroy that power. Why else would they need to silence anyone who steps out of line? Why else would they feel so threatened by truth revealers, if their power did not depend on keeping the people deceived, deluded, distracted and demoralized? If their power did not depend on us being asleep, they would not be in such a panic when some of us wake up.

For that reason, I know there is hope! I also know we have our work cut out for us, as the demoralization runs deep. Each and every one of us really has no choice but to do everything in our own power and ability to contribute to the ripple effect of the grand awakening. We must educate ourselves and educate others. Many many people are doing just that, and that includes Jews as well as Gentiles.

Rights and Wrongs in Syria and Canada

by Professor Tony Hall

winter scene of Jasper Townsite within Jasper National Park

In “Double-Double: 12 Months a Refugee” lawyer Reham Al Azem looks back over her experiences culminating in her first year of life as a “permanent resident” in Canada. Through the intervention of the Anglican Church, Ms. Al Azem along with her parents came to reside in the town site of Jasper National Park. The March 30 issue of Jasper’s Fitzhugh newspaper includes an essay describing Ms. Al Azem’s reflections on her family’s departure from Syria and the trio’s subsequent adjustments to life in their newly adopted land.

In telling the story of the move from Syria to one of Canada’s most famous alpine parks, Ms. Al Azem shares many poignant observations and anecdotes. One aspect of her account that I believe requires some contextual analysis is the very pronounced position she has taken in condemning the government of the elected Syrian President, Bashar Al-Assad.

Ms. Al Azem’s contempt for those in charge of the Syrian government is palpable. As the author sees it, the Syria she left behind has “a corrupt legal system” where many “innocent friends and family members” were being improperly arrested. She reserves especially harsh verbal venom for the Syrian militia who she accuses of imposing its will on Syrian citizens “regardless of the law or people’s rights.” She writes, “It seemed, in Syria, the sound of money was louder than the sound of human rights.”

Ms. Al Azem’s critique of the Assad government emerges in the course of her account of an episode involving a van that crashed into the window of a Damascus café injuring the author’s mother, Omayea El Marawi. The importance of this episode in the Fitzhugh essay is underlined by the publisher’s decision to include a photograph of the decisive car crash said to have set in motion the refugee saga.

In describing her juridical efforts to hold the driver of the runaway vehicle responsible for the injury to her mother, Ms. Al Azem presents a litany of recriminations against Syrian officialdom including members of the police and the judiciary. She sets her comments against a grim picture of shortages and deprivations in her native land. “There was a lack of jobs, electricity was limited, cooking gas was sparse and heat for our home was hard to come by.”

Ms. Al Azem neglects to mention that the difficulties she encountered in Syria unfolded in the context of wartime conditions. In this war, our own Canadian government has taken sides with other Western countries, puppet regimes and proxy armies to advance the goal of overthrowing the elected and legitimate government of Bashar Al-Assad. There is much evidence to demonstrate that the rather secular and pluralistic government headed up by the current president commands the loyalty of the largest part of the Syrian citizenry. Among his most enthusiastic supporters are members of Syria’s Christian minority. Bashar Al-Assad’s most vicious enemies are especially hostile towards Syrian Christians.

A new threshold in the illegal assaults on the government, people and sovereignty of Syria was crossed on April 6, 2017 when the government of US President Donald Trump mounted a tomahawk missile attack on a Syrian military airport. This armed invasion marks an unmistakable act of illegal aggressive warfare. The unproven allegations given as justification for the attack showed every sign of the engineered deceptions that are emblematic of the psychological operations integral to the perpetration of the so-called Global War on Terror.

The escalating severity of the foreign-backed efforts to overthrow the Assad government and destroy Syria in its present form extends the cycle of Western-backed and Western-perpetrated violence pointed at Muslim majority countries including Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Yemen.

The unqualified Western backing given to the hugely reactionary, repressive and anti-democratic monarchy of Saudi Arabia, a major consumer of the West’s high-tech weaponry, is an indicator of the hypocrisy and double standards animating the Middle East policies of Israel and the NATO countries including USA, Turkey and Canada. As the people and government of Syria are being pummeled, so too the civilian population of Yemen is being subjected to a huge onslaught of weaponized Western aggression channeled through the elaborate military apparatus of Saudi Arabia.

Contextual Considerations

Of course this commentary on the contextual framework of “Double-Double: 12 Months a Refugee” should not be understood as a criticism directed at Reham Al Azem and her personal reflections. Of course Ms. Al Azem has every right to comment as she sees fit on her experiences and perceptions of life in Syria and Canada. Indeed, her essay makes a significant contribution in helping to bring to light some features of the instigated migration currently transforming the human geography of many polities right now.

My critique in this matter is more directed at the publisher of the essay rather than at its author. Craig Gilbert is the Publisher of the Jasper Fitzhugh, a division of Aberdeen Publishing LP whose president is Robert W. Doull. These media executives opted not to introduce Ms. Al Azem’s important narrative with an overview of what has been happening in recent years to drive people out of Syria, Iraq and other countries in the region. Moreover, the Fitzhugh publisher has opted not to share with Jasper’s citizens any other personal narratives that look at what is going on in Syria from any perspective different from that of Ms. Al Azem.

The result is Ms. Al Azem’s story assumes an inflated significance that suggests her perspective is somehow representative of all sensible and law abiding Syrian citizens. Such is decidedly not the case. Generally speaking the mainstream media has ignored the perspectives of the millions of Syrian people who have chosen to stay put and defend their country from foreign-backed invasion. The big media conglomerates tend to demean the shared humanity of those who have chosen to back their own Syrian government. These Syrian patriots have chosen to pull together across many ethnic, religious and ideological lines to prevent Syria from falling prey to the same kind of horrific fate visited on Libya after NATO’s vanquishment of Gadaffi.

By providing only a single window into the internal dynamics of the Syrian conflict, the Jasper Fitzhugh is adding to the distortion of public understanding of some very complex realities. This purposeful blinkering of public perceptions aids and abets a particular agenda of Canadian domestic and foreign policy in ways that are entirely consistent with more pervasive patterns of media deception. This genre of misrepresentation is currently left to run almost completely unchecked in many of Canada’s highly biased and conformist venues of mass communication.

The rigidness of this system of propaganda and thought control is causing discerning students of public affairs to turn away in droves from discredited mainstream media venues. Too often the institutional backing is not there when conscientious journalists attempt to speak truth to power. On the big issues of war and peace, life and death, dominant media venues tend to line up with the military-industrial banking cartels that control Western governments. As demonstrated by the covert and overt involvements of our governments in the Syrian war, our political leadership is deeply implicated in an intense deluge of illegal actions and stunning deceptions. The magnitude of the international crimes committed in this surreptitious way far exceeds the severity of the crimes that Ms. Al Azem attributes to the Syrian government.

Mark Taliano is another emerging star of Canadian investigative journalism with a specialty in the Syrian debacle. A retired high school teacher from Southern Ontario, Taliano has recently published a short book, Voices From Syria. In it Taliano draws on his travels to Syria where he conducts many interviews with Syrian decision makers and regular folks. His analysis is also based on his deep reading of many primary and secondary sources.

Aspects of Taliano’s critique of the mainstream media’s role as agents of propaganda can easily be applied to the Jasper Fitzhugh’s very selective treatment of the Syrian war. Ms. Al Azem’s hostile attitude to the elected government of Syria just happens to be in perfect alignment with a main message of the psychological warfare division in the West’s deadly campaign to eliminate the Assad government. The coalition pushing the “regime change” scenario includes the Persian Gulf monarchies, Israel, NATO along with the West’s Takfiri proxy armies.

Both Bartlett and Taliano draw upon an extensive body of evidence to demonstrate that the heavily armed entities in Syria regularly described as “terrorists” in the mainstream media are in fact proxy armies. They are financed and armed by state entities dedicated to the overthrow of the Al Assad government. These much-hyped bands of armed mercenary soldiers go by many names including Al-Nusra Front, ISIL, Daesh, Al Qaeda, Jaish al-Fatah and Ahrar ash-Sham. The failure of the mainstream media to tell the truth about the backstory of “terrorism” in Syria is widely replicated by controlled media such as the Jasper Fitzhugh.

Put simply, there is no shortage of credible sources sprinkled throughout the Internet to illustrate that the very Western powers supposedly fighting “the terrorists” have in fact recruited, trained, armed, financed and directed these same mercenary pawns. This mobilization of paid proxy armies who have been well rewarded to inject an Islamic dimension into the West’s imperial wars began with the CIA-s creation of al Qaeda in the 1980s.

It is well documented that al Qaeda was part of the US-assembled group to advance the policies of US President Ronald Reagan by militarily undermining the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan. For thoughtful observers the US government’s deployment of al Qaeda as a proxy force in Afghanistan and now in Syria should raise alarms about the Western establishment’s claim that al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were the main culprits of 9/11. How is it that the US government is currently sponsoring the very group it still alleges are the perpetrators of 9/11? Does this deployment of Takfiri fighting forces to topple the Assad government fit into a larger plan to balkanize the Middle East and prepare the ground for the invasion of Iran?

Psychological engineering forms an integral part in the Global War on Terror. The engineering of public opinion and attitudes depends on the mass media’s maintenance of tight prohibitions against any sustained analysis of the important role played by the West’s mercenary proxy armies flying Islamic flags. The West’s psychological warfare is pointed largely against its own western populations. The unrelenting media disinformation has created a toxic mental atmosphere with the goal of eliciting public consent for abominations likes Trump’s missile assault on the sovereign people and government of Syria. Will Jasperites, Canadians and decent men and women throughout the world go along with this very clear violation of international law?

As Taliano sees it, too many of us have been lulled into complacency by a corrupt media that fails to give the necessary illumination to the great issues of war and peace, life and death in the global community. He asserts, “most Canadians unfortunately, remain captured by the propaganda and have become immune to publicly available evidence-based research.” Referring to the Western backing of the very same entities the West claims to be fighting, Taliano continues, “Our proxies slit throats, chop heads, and take no prisoners as we in the West waffle in indecision and take the comfortable easy road of believing the labyrinth of lies promulgated by Western media messaging.”

Human Rights and Intellectual Diversity in Jasper

In expressing her contentment with her decision to move with her parents to Canada, Reham Al Azem comments that “peace is where you can defend your rights if there is a threat to them.” Is the Fitzhugh a champion or an opponent of the very rights Ms. Al Azem extolls? Is Jasper a place that embraces or demeans the right of Canadians to enjoy safety and security in our own homes; where we the citizens can express ourselves clearly in accordance with the principles of free speech as well as freedom of conscience, religion, conviction, and assembly?

In the same March 30, 2017 issue that contains the “12 Months a Refugee” essay, the Fitzhugh’s publisher exposes his hostility to the rights of one Jasper citizen. Through the gift of musical acumen, this Jasper citizen, Monika Schaefer, has for almost four decades contributed enormously to the community life of her mountain village. A violin teacher, Ms. Schaefer has performed voluntarily for appreciative audiences in schools and old folks homes as well as in countless benefit concerts. One of the concerts at which Ms. Schaefer performed was devoted to raising money to help bring Ms. Al Azem and her parents to Jasper.

By publishing a letter attributed to one “Paul Brooke” of North Vancouver British Columbia, the publisher of the Fitzhugh extends broad latitude to an individual living far from Jasper to defame Ms. Schaefer in full view of her home community. Brooke’s slanderous attack culminates in a statement where Ms. Schaefer is told her residency in Jasper “is a privilege, not a right.” The Vancouverite’s condemnation emanates from his criticism of Ms. Schaefer for giving voice to interpretations of World War II history that do not conform with mainstream viewpoints.

If the policies and opinions of Jasper’s Fitzhugh toward Monika Schaefer are any indication, perhaps Ms. Al Azem might reflect on the apparently conditional nature of respect for human rights in her adopted community. Perhaps the means for “protecting her rights” are not as solid and entrenched in Canada as she thought.

The limits on respect for human rights in Jasper arise in the context of a Canadian society that apparently grants a lot of latitude to those who seek to prohibit, ban and systematically defame citizens that express interpretations discordant with mainstream orthodoxy. Jasper advertises itself as a place where diversity is respected. As the smear campaign against Ms. Schaefer demonstrates, however, the reality of antagonism towards intellectual diversity in Jasper is very different from the town’s slick PR slogans and images.

In their response to Ms. Schaefer’s controversial video entitled Sorry Mom, I Was Wrong About the Holocaust, some key members of the community are demonstrating a marked hostility to the ideals of free expression. Instead of creating venues for the rational discussion of competing narratives, some have chosen to dramatize their disagreement with Ms. Schaefer by blocking her from obtaining licenses and accessing certain businesses and cultural venues. Rather than stand up for the protection of human rights, the publisher of the Fitzhugh has opted to lead the dark enterprise of ritual defamation.

If the powers that be are guided by the principle that living in Jasper is a privilege, not a right, who will qualify for this privilege? Will all residents of Jasper as well as its businesses and clubs be subjected uniformly to an ideas test to see if they qualify for residency privileges? What would be the criteria for such a test? Who would administer it?

Would the Fitzhugh and its publisher qualify for residency? Would their apparent hostility to the principles of free speech as articulated in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms be held against them? Will those responsible for transforming the Royal Canadian Legion in Jasper, an important venue for live music, pass the privilege test?

Will the self-appointed ideological commandants that own and operate CoCo’s Café in Jasper qualify? What is to be said of their claim that vendors in Alberta have full discretion to express their prejudices by refusing to do business with any group or individual they opt to shun? Will those in charge of Jasper’s Habitat for the Arts be held accountable for the exclusionary treatments meted out to Ms. Schaefer? What is the effect on artists, of subjecting their creative endeavours to tests for intellectual conformity to prevailing ideas?

Who in Jasper are the most aggressive violators of the very rights whose attractions apparently motivated Ms. Al Azem and her parents to move from Syria to Jasper National Park? Is there truth to the proposition that one can know the true rulers of a society, by identifying the parties one is not allowed to criticize?

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After the article was published in the American Herald Tribune, I sent the link to numerous local contacts in Jasper, with this message: “Here is a deeper analysis of local affairs in the global context, a timely article by Professor Tony Hall.” I received the following sneering remark from Dr. Mark Addison.

Monika , your recent article on the Syrians in Jasper could possibly have had some credibility, however, after your previous statements regarding the holocaust, nobody believes anything you say anyway.

I subsequently thanked Mark for engaging with me and told him I was pleasantly surprised. I pointed out to him that I was not the author of the article. I thanked him for the compliment of thinking it was me who authored it. I told him that Professor Anthony Hall is a historian who has been studying these issues for a very long time.

I wonder though if by mere association, Dr. Addison believes that anything my friends or associates write cannot be believed either. Interesting concept. It is, after all, one of the effects of the practice of ritual defamation, where evidence and truth matter not.

Jasper’s weekly newspaper called Fitzhugh has become the channel through which vitriol and venom towards this Politically-Incorrect writer has been escalated lately. They have scant regard for fair journalism in the form of providing proper context and the right of response or for fact-checking.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the Town Council meeting at which I made a presentation about the unresolved busking issue. It seems that the moment things appeared to be looking up for me, someone got busy contaminating the good will which was present at that meeting. Immediately I felt hostilities rising, both on the street and in the Fitzhugh. The article about the meeting certainly was skewed in that it did not reflect the tone of the meeting. Amazing how that happens when certain parts are suppressed and others elevated and taken out of context.

Week after week since mid February, the assaults in the paper continued. The culmination of it was the March 30, 2017 newspaper which carried yet another letter by a person who lives far away from this little town of 5000, someone who is unknown to this community and really has nothing to do with this town. Why is he so interested in defaming me? He claims to be Paul Brooke from North Vancouver.

A little context for this letter is the article from the week before, in which I learnt that a defamation lawsuit has been filed against me. That was interesting news to me.

Every single sentence in this letter is highly crafted for maximum damage to me, and psychologically targeting the community to do more shunning – they have been too nice!

Dear editor,

I just read your article in the March 23 edition of the Fitzhugh concerning Daniel Gallant and Monika Schaefer.

I’m delighted to see Daniel Gallant’s court challenge against Schaefer, and congratulate the Fitzhugh for excellent and responsible reporting.

Until recently, there has been an understandable tendency in Jasper to overlook or downplay the Schaefer story.

Everyone is entitled to their own private beliefs and opinions, but not to shove them in other people’s faces like Schaefer has done.

Her carefully crafted image as “just a peaceful little old lady who wants freedom of speech” simply doesn’t accord with the known facts.

Her public association with known extremists, anti-Semitic websites and international neo-Nazi groups is evident to anyone who takes the time to look.

Schaefer has drawn negative international attention to herself and the town of Jasper, tarnishing the image of a truly great community by her presence.

She seems to relish her self-imposed status as a persecuted martyr of historical revisionism and the extremist alternate right.

She doesn’t seem to get the fact that living in Jasper is a privilege, not a right.

Paul Brooke
North Vancouver, B.C.

Wow! What can I say? Well, like a friend of mine says, it is just so over-the-top, it kind of speaks against itself. Who is he? Why does he target someone in a little community so far from where he lives?

That was a sample of our friendly neighbourhood newspaper.

On the Street

I had an interesting experience the other day. My friend and I went for breakfast at Coco’s Cafe, a place that I had not frequented since before my fateful Sorry Mom, I was wrong about the holocaust video. I have to admit that I was a little curious how the proprietor would react to my presence. I had a feeling that she would not be neutral towards me and that she might have strong feelings either very positive or very negative. She wasn’t there when we ordered and had our large breakfast. We enjoyed some quiet conversation and left.

Just outside the door, I looked up and lo-and-behold there was the proprietor walking straight towards us. I smiled at her and said “Hi Lynn!” There was no smile coming back at me, but just a silent glare, all the while marching towards us while we were standing in front of her Cafe. When she was about to disappear through the door, I said “We just enjoyed a lovely breakfast in your place!” This was genuine, with not a hint of insincerity.

Lynn stopped in her tracks, squarely faced me, and declared: “Monika, you are not coming back into my restaurant! You are not welcome here, you are not coming through these doors again. They (the servers inside) just didn’t know. It would be a conflict of interest for me to let you eat here!”

“Conflict of interest?”, I asked in disbelief. “Conflict of interest?”

“Yes, conflict of interest. I am on the board of the Legion.” As though that should explain everything and be the most natural thing in the world. Well perhaps in Jasper it is natural, where the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 31 president Ken Kuzminski has declared me persona non grata on their premises, ever since early last summer.

My friend Tony Hall told Lynn that she had just subordinated her restaurant business to the thought police business. She retorted that the law says she can serve whoever she wanted, and by extension refuse service to whomever she chose. That was that. She disappeared through the door, leaving us standing there, jaws dropped, quite in shock.

cc to Mayor and Councillors, and the Habitat for the Arts staff
bcc list extensive

Dear Mr Fercho,To follow up after my appearance at yesterday’s council meeting, I am requesting a space on the agenda of a town council meeting in the near future. The purpose of my presentation will be to address the busking issue.

I am confident that we will resolve this with a positive outcome, and I look forward to letting people around the world know, who are watching closely. I fully expect to be playing my violin on the streets of Jasper come Spring 2017.

Background

It is hardly a secret that I have been denied a busking permit during the summer of 2016 for the alleged reason of my “publicly proclaimed non-inclusive beliefs”. The Jasper Community Habitat for the Arts was given the authority to sell busking licenses on behalf of the town, and Habitat employee David Baker denied me the license. During the summer I tried unsuccessfully to have a meeting with David Baker to discuss the matter. On August 16th Prof Anthony Hall was informed by staff in the administrative office that it was Marianne Garrah who was responsible. Both Dave Baker and Marianne Garrah are on copy of this email.

My appearance at the council meeting on November 1st was unscheduled. Thank you, Mayor Ireland, for giving me a moment to speak. I politely stopped talking when Councillor Wall intervened after about 2 minutes, and said I was out of order because I was not on the agenda. I would like to point out, however, that many rules and conventions have been broken all summer long in prohibiting me, a long-time and upstanding citizen of Jasper, from busking. I feel that I would not have been out of line had I insisted on another 5 minutes of Council’s time thereby slightly bending “the rules”.

Everyone knows the story, and there has been a stunning and shameful silence from Council on this matter. It is high time that we have a frank discussion of what exactly went down in Jasper Alberta Canada in the summer of 2016 with regards to freedom of expression and inclusiveness (NOT!) of someone that has a “politically incorrect” view of history.

Monika Schaefer is now experiencing ritual defamation. She is being shunned and ostracized in her home town of 5000 people where she has lived as an active community member and leader for 35 years. She released the YouTube video “Sorry Mom, I was wrong about the Holocaust” on Alfred S — Monika’s brother’s channel (17 Jun 2016):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0_BZ…

Since then she has been in the international News which you can follow on the links below. Monika has been an active leader in her community in Jasper, Alberta, Canada as a violin teacher, musician and involved in politics.

Her Green Party background is that she ran three times federally (2006, 2008, 2011) and once provincially (2004). She also attended the founding convention of the Green Party of Canada in 1983.

TRANSCRIPT

Part 1/2

[29:07 minutes]

[00:00]

Paul Fromm: We have a lot of free speech issues this afternoon to look at. We should have a day-long seminar, but it won’t last all afternoon. Our guest speaker is Monika Schaefer and she has really be through a lot and her story really is a disgrace. To Canada, to her community and to Canadians in general. You know, we as a people like to pat ourselves on the back about how human rights oriented people we are! We’re the nice guys. Oh, we’re kind. What’s our Trust Fund kids say, “we’ve got to bring our sunny ways”.

Well, I’m afraid that a lot of ordinary Canadians are pretty mean, pretty nasty. The way they behave is not all the image they have of themselves and Monika’s story is a rather shocking example of what can happen, on the part of mean spirited Canadians. And I’m not just talking about one or two people, bad guys. We’re talking about a fair number of people in a community where Monika has worked for thirty five years. Well known, she’s been a real community activist. She donated her violin playing to all sorts of community events. She’s run four times for the Green Party. In other words, she’s a known quantity in a small town. People, by a large, really liked her. She’s very sunny, giving personality. And when you hear the story of what has happened since June, I’ve got to say it. It will probably make you feel, as I feel and that’s pretty disgusted. That’s part one of Monika’s story.

Part two, she’s going to be talking about a good friend of hers who is also going through an incredible experience. He has been like, not actually fired, he’s suspended without pay. I suspect that works out about the same thing. Suspended without pay, not for anything he did in the classroom. And he’s a tenured university professor. But for political views he has expressed on his own time, on the Internet. And it points to the outrageous power, essentially a secret government, … They are not all that secret. And then we have, very briefly we touch on a couple of other free speech cases.

So Monika, I think this is really your first time in Vancouver speaking, and she’s a person who graduated from Ottawa University in Ontario, in Environmental Studies?

Monika Schaefer: Well, I took one term at the University of Waterloo, but I got my degree at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton.

Paul:So, and then she went on to work for the federal government in Parks, and so on. And so she had a wide career and, of course, lived most of her adult life in Jasper, Alberta. Very well accepted in the community and THEN she did something called, “putting up a video on YouTube.” No it wasn’t a “porno”, and suddenly all hell broke loose. So, I don’t want to spend any more time on that. I think you’ll get to know Monika very well if you haven’t already done so. Monika Schaefer.

Monika: Thank you. [applause]

Thank you Paul for organizing this and thank you all for coming. I really appreciate that. I know it’s Thanksgiving long weekend and you probably have family, you know, that you like to spend time with. And I really appreciate it that you came.

So yeah, this talk is kind of evolving because things are happening so quickly, day by day, as we speak. Day by day, the situation is changing. Not just on a local level and a regional level, but world-wide. And it’s very concerning.

From: Van Iderstine, CarsonDate: Wednesday, 5 October 2016Subject: Freedom to ask questions and investigate the human condition now and in the past as well as in the future.To: Anthony James

It’s very upsetting to hear this. I hope you know that I and others have truly enjoyed your classes; they have always been very interesting, relevant, and brought to life by your excellent personality.

This is a blow to academia everywhere, and represents the loss of a critical and questioning academic environment.

I hope that you will be reinstated as a fully tenured professor with all the perks that that entails.

Again, I want to emphasize how much I enjoyed your class and the life you brought to it, and that I’m very sad to see it go.Continue reading →

This is an Open Letter to the University of Lethbridge. I encourage others to take action to rectify this gross injustice which is being done to an esteemed, internationally respected Professor who has dedicated his life to the betterment of humanity and life on this earth.

September 30, 2016

To: mike.mahon@uleth.ca

Dear Mike Mahon,
President of the University of Lethbridge
Alberta, Canada

The witch hunt that has been launched by B’Nai Brith against Professor Anthony Hall has now become mainstream news, all according to a well-worn template. I am sure you are under a great deal of pressure to comply and participate in the attempt to destroy Dr. Hall’s career. The B’Nai Brith is a very powerful lobby organization. One could argue that they run our government, and now it is becoming obvious that they run the Universities.

Even while I am crafting this letter, the situation keeps evolving. There seems to be a coordinated attack, executed according to a preconceived plan in which the University is complicit.

Let me respectfully remind you that a University is meant to be a place of academic freedom, where not only students but also faculty should have the freedom to think, to debate, to question, to discuss, to research, unimpeded by forces of thought-control. A University’s mandate is to create a safe and open atmosphere for the free exchange of ideas. Continue reading →

Author John Wear reveals evidence contradicting the narrative we have been taught about Germany, Japan & the Allies in World War II. WEARS WAR is the battle to bring FAKE HISTORY into accord with the facts.